Sahil

on 18 Feb 13

Double prime instead of double quotes!

Manny Najera

on 19 Feb 13

Great interview. It made me think about how the Ruby ecosystem has been developed with programmers in mind, while the iOS ecosystem is centered entirely around Apple products. Want to code an iOS app? Hope you don’t mind buying several thousand dollars worth of Apple gear.

For mobile, I focus mainly on Android now, but I’ll have to take a closer look at RubyMotion. If I can completely cut XCode out of the loop (with the exception of the Organizer, as stated in the interview), iOS development might be a tad bit less painful.

John Topley

I’ve never understood this argument. Want to code a Windows application? Hope you don’t mind buying several thousand dollars worth of Windows PC. And speaking as someone who just spent a year learning iOS development and launching my first iOS app on the side…honestly it wasn’t that painful. I much prefer using Xcode to doing Java development with Eclipse, for example.

John Topley

on 20 Feb 13

Oh, looks like blockquote tags don’t do anything in the comments. Maybe you could address that?

Manny Najera

on 20 Feb 13

My main gripe against iOS development is the fact that I am locked into Apple’s hardware and software toolchain to develop and deploy my app. In contrast, I can build an Android app from Windows, Mac or Linux, which saves me from having to purchase expensive Apple gear (I’ve gone out and bought a new Mac twice when the iPhone and iPad launched).

So, yes, you are right: if you want to build an app for any platform, you’re going to have to spend a certain amount of money before you write any code, but I think we can all agree that Apple hardware tends to be just a tad bit more expensive.

It took me only about a month to go from zero to having an iOS app in the store (coded almost entirely in plain C, which was fun), and I actually think that the iOS development process is easy to use (although, I’ve found Android a little easier), but I just resent the fact that I had to spend more money than I would have liked to get there.

(The subtext of all this is that I’m unhappy that my app didn’t make enough money to offset the purchase of a shiny new Mac used for development!)

John Topley

on 20 Feb 13

Manny, no-one’s forcing you to do anything. It’s perfectly possible to develop iOS apps using an old Mac mini bought off eBay. Heck, I developed my app largely on my late-2006 iMac, which by modern standard is ancient. And no, we can’t all agree that Apple hardware tends to be just a tad more expensive. In the old days, sure, but where can I find Dell’s equivalent of a 13” Retina MacBook Pro with the bundled iLife suite?

Michael Guren

on 24 Feb 13

“Several thousand dollars of Apple gear”

I’ve supported myself on a $500 refurbed Mac Mini.

foljs

on 25 Feb 13

@Manny Najera
My main gripe against iOS development is the fact that I am locked into Apple’s hardware and software toolchain to develop and deploy my app. In contrast, I can build an Android app from Windows, Mac or Linux, which saves me from having to purchase expensive Apple gear

Are you implying that you would consider developing in a platform and NOT testing in it?

Because even if you could developer on OS A for OSes B and C, you would certainly need B and C machines to test your app before shipping.